Atropos Fugientes
by Askari Knight
Summary: A two-hundred year old vampire released from torpor, in attempting to Embrace an adviser to the new age unwittingly creates something so old it predates written history. nWoD Vampire, spiced with other lines as necessary.


He leans against the wall, arms idly crossed as he stares into the nursery. A quick glance at the clock tells him it is nine thirty-eight in the morning. He is sharply aware of the date.

March third, nineteen-eighty-five.

His birthday: literally, the day he was born.

Nothing happens without cause.

Supposedly, in the next hour or so he'll be squeezed out and a little after that he'll be placed with the rest of these pink fleshy blood-bags.

He closes his eyes as the relevance of that thought sinks in. Despite his tooth-and-nail ascent from the bowels of madness and inhumanity some traces still remained.

His eyes snap open as a set of footsteps approach. He watches the man as he stares into the nursery, eyes glistening. Tears of joy threaten to spill. The watcher's gaze is drawn into the nursery as a woman in a nurse's outfit brings a sleeping bundle in and places it into a crib, as though the infant is to be displayed.

In a way, he is. He studies the baby's face, trying to find traces of his own.

_Perhaps I've been alive too long…the mark age inevitably leaves on the flesh – even eternal flesh – has blurred any similarity there may have been: I can't recognize the infant as me._

No matter.

He relinquishes the effect causing the eyes of others to slide by and step up to the window. His father hurriedly blinks away his tears and regards him, unsure how to reconcile his sudden appearance.

"First child?" He asks, his accent a hodge-podge of hundreds of cultures. His tone is neutral.

"Yeah." His father can't hide the pride in his voice. "Is yours in there?"

"No, mine are all grown and flown from the nest."

"Really? You don't look that much past thirty."

"Thank you. I'm over forty, though." That is a bit of an understatement. On to business. He looks his father in the eye and with only a little effort overwhelms his will. His face droops as he begins his work, relaxing almost completely save to remain standing. He begins murmuring, speaking as though creating a computer program. In a sense, he is. He gives his father a series of variables as well as what to do with those variables depending on the values received. He can't account for all possibilities, but he's worked on this little program for years. He has most of the bugs worked out, but it still takes a while to "write" to his memory as he is only as fast as he is willing to speak.

When he stops, his father gives himself a shake, effectively rebooting with the new program in effect. The watcher hands him a key to a locker in a particular bank – which activates the program – and walks away, pulling a veil of Don't-Look-At-Me about his presence.

Now his father will go through his life as he would have before his son's interference, but at key points in time he will make decisions based on what he's been programmed. The most important will be to give his son that key on his eighteenth birthday as well as a prerecorded message. The wording was such that he would give it to him as soon after his eighteenth as possible, but the exact time was open-ended.

"'Good day, Liam. Or night. Whenever this message reaches you. It's me – you – but you probably won't believe it. This key that our father is giving you is the key to a Swedish bank account. By this time you'll have watched the first Harry Potter movie. This is similar, save that it also includes deeds to various places around the planet and the location of my library, which includes all my journals. Six thousand years of history, believe it or not. Contained within are secrets you must not share with anyone. They can endanger your life. I hope they'll set you free. I've been a long time on this world, and I can only hope you don't have to experience it as I did. All my love, narcissistic though it may be…Liam.'"

After the message plays his father will forget having said anything – as he has forgotten the instructions from his conscious mind – though likely his son will have questions. That is good. Through questioning, through uncertainty, he has hopefully set himself on the path to freedom.

All stories need a beginning, a setting and an inciting series of events. Liam's story begins some twenty years after his first birth, with a single name:

Soline Molyneux.

Liam didn't know her. Nobody living did. She'd been staked and stuffed into a crypt about a hundred and fifty years ago.

He and his coworkers went out drinking one night after a particularly rough shift, though he designated himself the "sober one" and nursed only a single rum and coke all night. This had the unfortunate side effect of causing him to serve as the butt of every joke the others came up with as they got progressively more intoxicated.

Sara – a meek and mild server by day and apparently a wild drunk by night – declared loudly "We should totally go to that old graveyard!" She giggled with ear-splitting volume as Liam tried to soothe the idea away, but quickly gave it up as futile when the others excitedly took up the call.

He did his best to shepherd them through the streets, though there were several bare misses as his coworkers spilled from the sidewalk to the streets.

The forty-five minute walk didn't do much to alleviate his companions' drunkenness, but he had to admit there were certain perks of lowered inhibition: namely Pascal's suddenly amorous attention once they were "safely" within the cemetery's walls.

So what if there'd been sixteen unsolved murders so far this year? Once Pascal pushed his mouth away from his neck and began nipping at Liam's neck, his fingers curled in his long hair of their own volition and absolutely nothing mattered: a guy takes what he can get when he works in a place that leaves him smelling like butter and fish no matter how much he showers…even if it takes a half-dozen drinks before he's considered desirable.

In retrospect Liam considered that all Sara was after was a bit of kinky alone-time with Jon. Even through the glorious mass of sensations Pascal was currently enticing with mouth alone – Liam would have a hickey tomorrow for sure – he could hear the telltale sounds of the other two engaged in spirited tonsil hockey.

They'd penetrated rather deeply into the cemetery, past the old walls into where the actual crypts were housed. There were three such buildings, built in the early eighteen-hundreds to house the remains of some bluish-blooded immigrants. The plaque above the door chained shut said as much, though it was quickly forgotten when teeth decided to join the lips.

Liam shifted one hip and thrust Pascal's legs apart, taking advantage of his greater height. Pascal complied ever so nicely and soon he'd wrapped those wonderfully pliable legs round Liam's waist. Settling his back against the old oak doors Liam settled in for a good grind.

Or tried, as the ancient wood splintered beneath their combined weight and they found themselves sprawled inside the crypt amidst rotted paneling and an echo of the sickening sound of wood crumbling to near-mush.

Though Liam tried to pull back to inquire after his partner's wellbeing, Pascal took this as an invitation to capture his mouth. This clearly indicated that he was – in fact – quite alright to continue, and Liam wasted no more thought on anything less important than devouring the compact, sexy man beneath him.

"Oh shit!" The words caused Pascal and Liam to freeze completely, eyes wide and respective tongues down the others' throat. The voice was male, almost nasal but high-pitched.

Jon.

"Get up!" Female, excited but slurring: Sara. "Don't you see it?"

"See what?" Liam asked stupidly, reluctantly uncoupling and attempting to subtly adjust himself for comfort. He glanced up to see where they were pointing, illuminated just enough by moonlight and the city's light pollution though his eyes had yet to fully adjust.

At first it was a mere patch of wispy fabric, stirring as the stale air began to circulate. As his eyes adapted it grew and resolved into the hem of a dress, once white but now stained gray with the dust of ages. A pretty black shoe coated in grime peeked out from the hem, encasing a withered foot of grey flesh like dry parchment.

Further up a dress straight out of a Victorian-era movie was a bodice designed to elevate a modest bosom to truly heroic levels, and when worn by someone who would fill it properly seemed likely to reveal scandalous depths of cleavage. Truly a pity it now housed a pair of desiccated folds that could only distantly be recalled as "breasts".

Even more a pity was the wooden shaft buried between them, an eternal mar…or so Liam thought.

"What the hell?" Pascal demanded, putting a hand to Liam's shoulder to signal for him to rise and let the small man up. Unfortunately the crypt had been built with an eye for short people and Liam had to stand with his head cocked to the side.

The four of them stared in dumb-founded silence at the staked corpse before Sara moved. Brazen hands shoved Pascal and Liam out of the way, though the alcohol made her steps uncertain.

"Oh, how pretty!" A hand darted down and the blonde waitress lifted a jeweled hairpin from the corpse's hair. Her sweater sleeve jostled the stake, which began crumbling in much the same fashion as the door.

"Sara, no," Jon sighed. "Graverobbing? Really?"

"But it's so pretty," Sara turned and smiled, roughly styling her hair and inserting the pin to hold it in place. She posed in the darkness, trying to draw attention to the pin with her hands. "How do I look?"

"Délicieux."

The four froze as the voice rose unbidden from the darkness hiding the corpse's head. Sara turned to peer into the darkness, only to let out a shriek as a pair of mummified hands seized her hair and neck and drew her down. She sprawled awkwardly and immediately attempted to get up, but succeeded only in dragging her attacker with her.

The corpse.

Withered arms held on with preternatural strength as the puckered mouth stretched inhumanly wide to reveal sharp, startlingly white fangs and a leathery tongue like a fat, desiccated worm desperate for moisture. Its legs didn't seem to be working properly, but that didn't stop it from latching its mouth onto Sara's neck. She squealed as its teeth tore through soft flesh and began suckling as Sara's own panicked heart pounded out its own dirge.

Sara struggled ferociously at first, but nothing she did could dislodge the thing and in short order she stopped thrashing, stopped moving. When Jon and Pascal shook off their horror and ran the bastards left Liam paralyzed with fear.

Like the predator it was its withered eyes caught the sudden movement. It stood under its own power as its flesh began to swell and become pale. Dust poured from the gaping wound in its chest as blood churned within.

The creature detached from Sara's too-pale neck and moved with blinding speed to snatch at the two would-be escapees. It lifted both Jon and Pascal clear off the ground with one arm each, looking from one to the other as though choosing between which fruit to suckle at first.

It chose Jon, and immediately gnashed at his throat. A delighted giggle rose from its throat as the first spurt of a panicked heartbeat splashed across its face before it sealed its lips around the wound and began sucking him dry.

The more of Jon's blood it drained the faster its own flesh began to change. Desiccated skin lightened and smoothed, the cracks and rents from untold years sealed themselves and its matted, age-lightened hair darkened and mysteriously untangled to a lustrous black.

Her breasts – most definitely a she – swelled like balloons until they strained at her dress…and ripped through. Age and the elements had not been kind to the fabric, and it tore like tissue paper. She made a sound of irritation and dropped Jon to tear away the bodice. Liam's coworker lay limply where he fell while the creature continued to rip at her dress, each attempt apparently failing to get just the right result.

Finally she stamped her foot petulantly and did away with the whole thing, standing in glorious nudity save for a snug-fitting band about her forearm and an anklet with tarnished silver bells. Her shoes had long since disintegrated, and she shook their remains free as she transferred her attention to Pascal.

She stared at him with a self-assured expression before widening her eyes and gazing directly into his. Pascal's struggles ceased and he relaxed completely, held upright by just one deceitfully delicate-looking arm. She smiled and tilted his head to the side and bent forward to bite, but paused. A sound of curiosity floated from her throat as she bent to more closely look at something on his neck.

Her head swung around to look straight at Liam, clearly having no trouble spying his location despite the shadows. Pascal began to struggle as her gaze was broken, and she negligently tossed him against the wall with a sickening crack. He fell to the floor and didn't move.

Liam's heart sped up as his eyes dropped to her chest, where the gaping hole was closing rapidly. She looked and saw what Liam was seeing, then smiled and walked forward with the predatory grace of some sort of jungle cat. The anklet tinkled delicately.

"Était-il le vôtre?" She sank down until she'd straddled Liam's hips, breasts pressed against his chest and fingers languidly toying with his hair. When he didn't answer she seized Liam's head roughly and pulled it back to expose his neck. "Eh bien?"

"I d-don't speak French," Liam stammered out, trying to sooth his panicking heart. She giggled and shifted her hips, grinding delicately.

"More the pity," she purred in a rich Parisian French accent, relaxing her grip to trace the lines of Liam's throat. "I asked 'is he yours?' He is marked, and vos amis are indisposed to answering."

"He's a friend." Liam answered, taking deep breaths. "My friend, and you killed him!"

"Non!" She seized his hair again. "I still hear his heart. I do not believe he will last very long, though. I think his neck is broken. Do you enjoy playing the part of a vampire?" A fingernail dug into Liam's neck, not quite breaking the skin. "Or the prey? What is the date?" When he didn't answer immediately her grip tightened until he was sure she'd pull out a handful of scalp, and he cried out. "I asked you une question. I would have you answer of your own will."

"Guh!" Liam breathed in relief as she relaxed her grip. "It's May, two thousand and nine." Her eyebrows rose and she released him completely, looking thoughtful. Liam's gaze landed on Sara, Jon, and then Pascal.

"A hundred and fifty four years," she mused, tapping her lips. "The times may have changed." She looked down at Liam, then over at the others. "Your clothing is so odd, too." She sighed. "I am afraid that I will be in need of a guide. C'est la vie. Now who should I choose?" She made an overacted show of hrming and umming until she lit up as though touched by a muse of inspiration. "I know! You!" A finger jabbed Liam in the chest as she spoke. "Yes, you shall be perfect." She cocked her head to the side, fingers dancing down the side of his neck. "But first…yes, first a taste…"

She moved with serpentine grace, slithering down in what could have been sensuous if Liam hadn't just watched her kill three people in under a minute, or if she hadn't had blood on her face.

Her hands moved down his chest, her eyes locked on his as her fingertips trailed his belly. A moment of disorientation as she suddenly became so much…_more_, and her hands were toying twixt Liam's legs. At that moment he felt certain he'd have done anything for her, but there was something just beyond awareness keeping him from that…and from responding.

Consternation transformed her face and the intensity left as she flickered forward, stopping an inch away.

"What is the matter?" She looked puzzled and her fingers began toying with his hair again. "Am I not pretty enough?" Her eyes went to the side, indicating Pascal. "Perhaps I am not man enough. Oh well." She smiled, canines elongating. "I have no need of someone who cannot even get it up. You shall serve me one way or another."

Liam struggled as she darted forward, teeth piercing his throat and opening his carotid. She possessed inhuman strength, and all Liam succeeded in doing was rolling them across the dusty floor.

His fingertips started to tingle as he lost blood at an alarming rate, his attempts to free himself gradually subsiding as his limbs grew leaden. Soon the panicked pounding of his heart began to fade, and no longer could he hear the rush of blood through his veins.

Probably because there wasn't enough blood to rush.

Liam lay with paralyzed limbs, panting shallowly while someone punched him repeatedly in the chest. The young woman reared back and stared at him with an accusatory expression.

"Why did you not stop me?" She demanded, poking his chest. A sigh and childish pout drooped her shoulders. "You cannot serve me now!" She made a show of thinking before perking up. "I know! I shall make you one of the Kine." She smiled down at Liam. "Will that not be beautiful? You shall be my childe and my lover. Once of the Blood you shall have as long as you need to teach me of this new world!" A broad grin crossed her face as she slashed her wrist with one suddenly razor-sharp nail, and pressed it against Liam's lips.

Her blood was hot and sweet, flowing into his mouth and but for a single hacking cough he suckled at her wrist as though parched. The fire of concentrated _LIFE_ seared his throat, a sudden hunger for more soothed only by the greater heat of the blood.

She closed her eyes and frowned in concentration, and he felt something _twist_ inside, a wrenching wrongness that caused him to convulse and throw her off with surprising strength. Pangs wracked his gut as he writhed in place, and red-tinged darkness crept along the periphery of his vision.

The darkness began to overtake his sight and sparks of light flickered before his eyes. He remembered dimly that was a sign of misfiring neurons or optic nerves, and was commonly experienced by the dying.

He cried out as a horrid pain danced through my veins, and gasped desperately as his heartbeat became irregular. Death approached on swift wings. In his growing delirium he could almost hear the beats of His wings.

_NO!_ The word echoed throughout his mind, and with the desperation of one of the dying sensed the power inherent to the blood lying like hot lead in his gut. Stubbornness bent that power to his will and new instincts forced it into his veins, replenishing what was lost. He could barely feel through the pain the itching of his neck as the woman's bite healed over, scabbing and becoming smooth flesh in a span of seconds.

The pain subsided while he gasped for breath, his heartbeat strengthening somewhat but still laboring with too-little blood.

"This is…this should not have happened." The girl – she couldn't have been more than seventeen or eighteen – crouched at Liam's side, peering at him with unblinking eyes. "I wonder what went wrong." Her fingers danced over his unmarred throat. "Perhaps I was asleep too long. Oh, I know! I must have given you a taste too soon before your death!" She nodded self-assuredly. "That must be it. You used the Blood to heal yourself, but surely you are not fully well as yet. You will need more, I know this." She looked at her body as he slowly turned onto his belly, nausea tying his stomach in knots. He felt ready to vomit, and didn't know if he'd have the strength to crawl out of the puddle or just collapse in it. "I shall feed you more, bind you to me. But I shall need more." She turned and looked at Pascal's body while Liam's world blurred and shifted.

Suddenly he could hear Pascal's faltering heartbeat from here. The sound faded back to nothing, then came back and redoubled. In the distance he could hear cars along the streets, at least several blocks off. The crypt alternatively brightened and darkened.

A dog barked, farther away than the cars.

A gunshot the other way.

Nothing.

The cacophony rose and fell as the crypt alternatively brightened and darkened. Scents he'd only been distantly aware of filled his nostrils with choking intensity before fading back to their near nonexistence. Liam gasped down several breaths of relatively scent-free air before that same intensity returned, nearly smothering him as even trying to breathe through his mouth the very taste of the air was overpowering.

The girl's vertebrae squished as she turned to look at Liam, hair cascading over her shoulder with a sound similar to a waterfall. Her "Hmm?" echoed through the crypt for a second as she considered her victim.

Liam's panicked heartbeat faded back to soundlessness as she approached and knelt at his side. She grasped his chin and turned his head from side to side. The darkness hid her features for only a moment before Liam's senses shifted back to hyperactive and she was lit as brightly as though illuminated by a searchlight.

"Au nom de Dieu…your senses are strengthened, oui?" Liam barely managed to twitch a nod out: still too weak to raise his head completely, and every irregularity of the floor demanded attention. "Through my blood you have gained the ability to improve your senses."

The sensations dulled again, the girl's face once more bathed in shadow.

"Stop it." Liam pleaded. His hearing detected the last word at "_HOLY SHIT_" on the decibel scale, though his following whine was barely audible.

"I cannot. You must learn control. For now it is beneath your waking mind, like your heart was." She stopped. "Excusez-moi. Like your heart _is_. You must take control of it, make it like your hand. Focus your thoughts on what keeps tightening and relaxing. It should take only a few minutes. The hardest part, my blood granted you." Her head tilted to the side, curiosity painting her expression. "I am rather surprised, though. Most times, a blood-bound servant takes in knowledge of one of the physical Disciplines. To have begun the path of Auspex is très étrange."

She laughed then, an ominous tinkling of cheer as she got up, returned to Pascal and drained him. Liam could hear every straining pulse of his heart as its blood was stolen. When it labored no more he felt cold wrap its claws around his spine, and tried to shy away as the girl came to him and held her torn wrist to his mouth.

Liam felt blood start to flow, but even as he tried to resist she locked gazes with him and spoke a single word: "Drink." Her voice reverberated and the word repeated, growing louder and more insistent until it was the only thing he could do. His lips clamped around the ragged wound and he applied suction. The hot, sweet blood rushed into his mouth and he drank it down as fast as he was able, all the while aware of some part of it splitting away as it pooled in his stomach. Awareness spread through his body as the mystical energy from her blood bled into his spirit…or something similar.

The sensations were unlike anything he'd experienced before, but now he could feel his internal anatomy like he could sense his hands. Strongest was his heart, followed by his blood and then everything else.

Her command faded and Liam coughed, suddenly aware of how full my stomach was. New strength filled his limbs as the vital energy the girl fed him through her blood medium replenished his blood supply. He could sense his body creating more blood to replace that which she'd drunk.

Liam coughed as the flow petered off, and she licked her torn flesh as it knit together. She showed him where the wound had been and asked with a sweet smile "All better, non?" Liam didn't say anything as he tried to lever himself into more of a sitting position, and she slapped him hard, nails digging furrows across his cheek with a look of such bestial fury that all his newly restored color drained from his face. Her features remained frozen in that horrible anger for half a second too long before her sweetness returned. Again she asked, "All better, non?" The last word was slightly stressed, and Liam hurriedly nodded my agreement.

Her eyes locked on his and widened, the pupils dilating to block out her iris entirely.

"Burn." She whispered, and suddenly all his nerves ignited in white-hot agony. For two seconds there was no concept of self beyond the pain and two wide eyes boring into his soul.

As quickly as it began it ceased, the sudden lack of pain nearly as torturous as the experience itself.

"Now really, you must not aggravate me so." She giggled then, the sound completely at odds with her unblinking stare. "You yet live. I have given you la Vitae, and saved your life." Her pupils expanded again and her words took on a hollow quality. Liam sagged, all his muscles relaxed. The creature held his eyes with some supernatural force, though, and he couldn't look away even as his head rolled to the side. "You are mine. Body and soul, I own you and you serve me in any way I choose. I gave you life, and I am more than willing to take it away should you cross me. You comprehend me, non?"

She raised a hand as the young man struggled to respond, interpreting his silence as dissent.

"Y-yes!" He stammered the word out just in time, and instead of further gouging marks into his face she caressed his cheek, smiling broadly in that same untouched-eyes way.

"Good boy. Now, I assume nudity is still a taboo, so you shall help me find attire appropriate to my station." She glanced at Sara's corpse, eyeing it contemplatively. "For now, this shall do." Her eyes turned to Liam and narrowed ever so slightly. "Assist moi."

He jumped to do her bidding, but slowed as he approached the body. Behind him the vampire – he was gradually realizing what she truly was – sighed theatrically. "These emotions are becoming quite irritating, and I am no closer to being garbed than I was when you were laying as an infant on the floor."

"Apologies, Miss." Liam managed to choke out, fingers twitching. "I have just never touched a dead body before. Well…dead human."

The vampire came up behind him and twined her arms around his torso, raising up on tiptoes to rest her chin on his shoulder. Her fingers lazily stroked up and down his chest as she whispered into his ear.

"You are all mere animals. You can be more useful than bird or beast, but you are animals nonetheless." Her cold breath tickled his ear. "Now, I suggest you begin moving. Else you want me to find another manservant?"

Liam paled, and knelt to strip the body, wishing he'd thought to bring gloves and chastising himself for thinking he could have prepared for tonight's events. His shaking hands made it almost impossible to undo Sara's zippers, and his sexuality made her bra a complete mystery.

She giggled as she tried on the pants, apparently taking perverse pleasure at wearing "men's" clothing. The bra mystified her as much as it did Liam, and was quickly discarded in preference for Sara's belly-top t-shirt, which she considered "très belle".

Her lips curved back to reveal her fangs as she stepped out of the crypt. The city's lights reflecting from the clouds far above illuminated everything nearly bright as day to their enhanced vision.

"Magnifique!" She turned to look all about as Liam gradually emerged from the crypt behind her. He looked with new eyes at the luminous city. Her eyes rested on her new slave, observing his bewilderment. The horror of just moments ago nearly forgotten.

Time for this city to remember the name of Soline Molyneux.


End file.
